HomeMy WebLinkAboutTrans 2013-08-13 Item 3B - SCATBd - 8/5/13 Letter to Governor InsleeAugust 5, 2013
The Honorable Jay Inslee
Office of the Governor
PO Box 40002
Olympia, WA 98504 -0002
Dear Governor Inslee:
We have a transportation system that is suffering from a lack of maintenance and upkeep,
growing congestion, and reduced freight mobility. If we want to protect our economy and retain
and grow our state's job base, this state of inaction cannot continue.
We are already seeing our manufacturing hubs and our ports lose market share, based at least in
part on a lack of transportation infrastructure investment. Boeing's decisions to move some of its
787 assembly to South Carolina; and the investments by other ports across the nation, along the
West Coast, and in British Columbia, are just two recent examples.
Many of those ports have been investing hundreds of millions, if not billions in infrastructure
improvements in anticipation of the opening of the widened Panama Canal. At the same time,
while stakeholders across the state have come to a consensus on the importance of completing
State Highways 167 and 509, the state has yet to act. The major freight corridors of the second
largest warehouse and distribution center on the West Coast must be repaired and brought up to
modern truck standards. Roads for commute and transit must be prepared for the jobs of the
future that can be ours if we act.
We must remember that our ports are the key to our position as the most trade dependent state in
our Union. The widened Canal will open soon and states and provinces from Canada to Mexico
and from the Gulf to New York are already moving on strategies to support their ports that
threaten to take our businesses and jobs in the future.
If these losses materialize, we will not have the business activity to generate the tax revenue
needed for schools, for public safety, and for other critical public services. We must act now. Our
state is already behind and our engineers fully admit that if we get a transportation package
approved today it will be years before a project is started. We don't have time to waste.
Additionally, our local roads continue to deteriorate and local transit agencies are being forced to
make significant service cuts because of mounting funding shortfalls. If these service cuts
continue, they will detrimentally impact our economy by creating barriers for transit - dependent
riders to get to work and school, and by slowing the speed of traffic and the shipment of goods
by forcing more cars onto our roadways.
9
August 5, 2013
Page 2
Governor, we need your leadership to avert this crisis, and we need to treat the need for a
transportation package as an economic emergency. The members of the South County Area
Transportation Board ask that as Governor, you work with legislators to craft a bi- partisan
transportation funding package that can be passed during a special session prior to January 1,
2014.
Sincerely,
Pete Lewis
SCATBd Chair
Marcie Palmer
SCATBd Vice -Chair
South County Area Transportation Board
10